[MartinCron]

The stack ranking BS is (allegedly) a thing of the past, and the rain in Seattle is overblown. There are plenty of US cities that get more rain than Seattle.

I won't challenge your opinion about Steve Ballmer, though.

[WiseWeasel]

You made me curious, so here's a list of US cities with more average rainy/snowy days per year than Seattle[1]:

  223: Juneau, Alaska
  209: Mt. Washington, N.H.
  169: Buffalo, N.Y.
  163: Olympia, Wash.
  161: Caribou, Maine
  155 (tied, interestingly): Cleveland, Ohio
  155: Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.

At 37 inches of rain per year, it's not a particularly high volume of rain; it's just spread out over a lot of days. San Francisco is down at 63 rainy days and 20 inches per year, for comparison.

[1] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762183.html

[vonmoltke]

155 (tied, interestingly): Cleveland, Ohio

Lake effect snow

Anyway, compare this to where I'm from (South Florida)[1]: Average rainy days - 135 Average rainfall - 62" - 64"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami,_fl#Climate

[WiseWeasel]

Well, Microsoft would have to pay me a LOT to move to South Florida as well. : P

[MartinCron]

I don't consider that a fair assessment, as a snowy day is a very different thing from a rainy day. Seattle gets maybe a handful of snowy days a year, and never gets punishingly hot/humid like some cities do.